Tips on how to comment your code

#comments #devtips #practicality

What are your thoughts on this?

I am constantly improving the series with whatever information I can get my hands on, therefore, please, do leave a comment, however positive/negative it is.

Thank you!

Top comments (6)

tux0r • Aug 15 '18

Good code is its own comment.

Sergiu Mureşan • Aug 15 '18 • Edited

I agree, but it depends on the language. In a strongly typed language that is usually the case but when you don't even know what is the type of data that the function returns then you might need some comments.

tux0r • Aug 15 '18 • Edited

That's why you shouldn't have arbitrary variable names (-> good code)...

Imagine the following (pseudo-)Common Lisp code:

(let ((username (get-username-from-database)))
    ;; 35734 lines of other code...
    (do-something-with username))

Chances are that username will be a string - which is obvious even 35734 lines later. When in doubt, you might even prefix it like you would do in strongly typed languages:

int iNumber = 0;
std::string strNumber = "0";

Admittedly, <type>Number is a horrible name for a variable. ;-)

Sergiu Mureşan • Aug 15 '18

I fully agree

The problem is that there are times we don't create good code, we create bad code in a hurry and comment it (instead of refactoring it) due to time constraints. Couple that with working in a team of developers and comments become the norm. Unfortunately, we can't base our assumptions that the whole team will make good code and not create ambiguity with their naming.

If you don't work in a team, then by all means, don't use comments, that's what I usually do 99% of the time in my personal side projects.

Believe me, I wish we could simply get away from comments altogether since they:

Aren't linked to what the code actually does (changing code doesn't change the comment and vice-versa)
Are mostly boilerplate and sometimes add tons of unnecessary lines in our code.